Quiver (itch) (Matt Colón)

River receives a letter that her parents' health is failing and, despite the hurt she's experienced in the past, decides to help them by showing them love in various ways.   With time and effort, she can let them know that they are loved.

This was originally submitted to the CGDC Speedgame: Classic 2022 game jam, using the Psalm 127:4 bible verse as inspiration:

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one's youth. (NIV)

Another translation that helped inspire our direction of the game was:

Having a lot of children to take care of you in your old age is like a warrior with a lot of arrows. (CEV)

How to Play

Match three love language icons to show love to your parents, who are sick and in need of help from their only daughter.  Their love tanks slowly decline over time, so you need to keep matching to keep them filled.  If you fill a love tank (get it to 100 points) it will remain filled, but you must still last until the end of the time limit to succeed!  Fill all of the love tanks for the best ending!

Controls

During paneled cutscenes, press any key to advance.  Other cutscenes will advance automatically.  During gameplay:

Space: Shuffle the tiles
Left/Right: Move the tiles left or right
Down: Drop the tiles down

You can pause by clicking the pause button on the top left of the room scene.

Credits

Matt Colón - Game design, programming
Evelyn Colón - Game design, digital art, narrative, aesthetic selections, tile mapping

External Assets and Resources: Gameplay

Starter Columns pack - Deluxe (Match 3 gameplay)

Tools

Tiled (Room scene layout)
SuperTiled2Unity (Importing Tiled maps into Unity)
Aseprite (Character animation)
Animation Importer (Importing Aseprite animations into Unity)
Audacity (Modifying gameplay BGM to loop)

Art Assets

GUI Icons
 ("Gifts," "Quality Time,"  "Service," and "Words of Affirmation" icons for match 3 game)
SpellBook Megapack ("Physical Touch" icon for match 3 game)
Tiny Tales Human NPC Advanced 1.0 (Characters for room scene)
Top-Down Tileset - Interior (Tileset for room scene)
Graphical User Interface Set for Games (Speech bubble for room scene)
Fantasy RPG snow pack (Gift for room  scene)
Pixel House Set (Breakfast for room scene)

Music

RPG Fusions Music Pack (Title, Intro, Ending, and Epilogue BGM)
Total Music Collection (Gameplay BGM)

Known Issues

• The "Starter Columns pack - Deluxe" has some bugs that will cause some tiles not to be in their correct space, causing them to either hover above their actual location, merge visually with another tile, or be visible but not present on the board.  This doesn't significantly affect gameplay, but it does cause some unexpected outcomes every once in a while later in the game when lots of tiles are on the board.